In the past few days, Iv'e had some discussion with Zoli and others, about the future of the Mandrake server.

To make a long story short(er), in the wonderful land of Israel, an army service of 3 years is forced upon anyone who reaches the age of 18.
Now, as you [probably] know, i'm 18 soon. (i'll mark my birthday once Matej installs the birthday mod ),
and i'm going to leave soon.

And since the Mandrake server resides in my home, and i'm it's sole admin, we, the community, need to decide about it's future.
Some of my ideas are in the poll above, and you can feel free to suggest an idea of your own.
however i don't feel that there are any possible solutions besides what iv'e posted.

Please folks, this is am important decision. so reply and vote accordingly.

Last edited by DenisF on Mon Oct 10, 2005 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Leaving the server open in your home while you are away is not gonna work, remember it's a free host and there is no way it can be stable for a whole month for 3 years. There is going to be much downtime.

You should send the HDD to Zoli and he can restart the Mdk server and if when you're back after 3 years you still want it he can just send the HDD back to you!

Of course another server (Suse) with the current mdk user data restored is also a good idea, but not put the data in a server already online (the load is high enough ).

OK, Sorry I guess I'm too used to OpenVMS...
I've been to sites (e.g. offices) where a small OpenVMS server had been running uninterrupted for so long, they had forgotten where it was... I'm talking uptime measured in *years*!

Of course if you think Mandrake can't measure up to that standard...

As for the army: Just try not to take life too seriously.

Remember: "Military intelligence is to intelligence as military music is to music."

Thing is, those small offices probably had UPS systems on every aspect of the network [i.e switches, routers, the server itself] and even those UPS were backed up by UPS.

While my 'net isn't even backed up by a surge protector.

And the military, well, that's just a box of worms waiting to be opened maybe i'll get a good job, maybe i won't.
and with my luck - i will probably get hit by the bus that takes u to bootcamp on the first day. not once - but twice.

giving the server to someone else in israel might not be a very easy task. besides the obvious points of finding someone trustworthy enough to carry the job, that person must also be prepared to donate a fair share of their time to upkeep the server.
and this is a voluntary job, i don't feel like trying to force someone into doing it.

Though i was hoping to get the community's help deciding this, but seeing as this thread has 90+ views, and only 4 votes; i guess i was dreaming.

The final decision will be made -around- march, maybe later. i know not.
at the very least, the server will remain fully operational until that date.

I'm gonna try and talk with some of the local ISP's, pull a few strings, and i might get a spot for it in some server farm.
or if the price is right, i suppose i'll just pay for it out of my 50$/month soldier salary.

Otherwise, i'm leaning towards the option of migrating the users to suse/debian.

I would prefer if somebody else in Israel could have a possibility to take care about Mandrake server.

Sorry guys.... much as I would like to; At home I'm in a pretty rural area, connected behind a NAT box shared by approx 500 PCs, and no inward access. At work a. it would be definitely forbidden b. behind an impregnable firewall, definitely no inward access...

I've mainly got myself an account on mandrake because of it's psychical position (outside/not on the polarhome NAT in Stockholm) so I voted "Keep the server up" (where is).
Though it's 2 risky if no one can administrate it. If you don't find a local admin than you should rather transfer users/files to some other server.

This is tough one. . .
And me votes to transfer. being one of the users.
One down one up, life goes on.
So in anyway it should be fine! (I chose option No1)
And USAF Uconndog salutes you the Israel Soldier private Denis. Wishing you to become E-6 or above!

@Matej
That was my intended option aswell.
I'm thinking that the SuSe server that Z is gonna set up soon will make the mandrake users feel rather comfty, as it will be based on 2.6 kernel and gcc 3.3, so no recompiletion will be needed

@jagar
bit of a contridiction there m8, you say to transfer the files but vote to completely terminate the server + all users :S
make up your mind brother

kkk
my mind always contradicts with my mouth, sorry.
the idea was that its an *educational system*, so we must accept any decision you make!
we can only imply the diversity of possibilities.
And i think that the decision is already made, just need some support right?
Thats all.

Ps in US Army you will go from E1 to E9.
in three years people usually get E1 to E4. excluding special force. And i was wishing you to get higher level.